The global fleet of ‘megamax’ containerships (MGX) at the end of last month surpassed the 4.00 million t in terms of total tonnage to reach 4.01 million t.
At least 186 vessels of the ‘MGX-24’ variety and the slightly smaller ‘MGX-23’ variety are currently in service, with 43 more vessels and 1.25 million teu on order.
In recent years, megamax vessels have become the backbone of the Asia-Europe trade, slowly but surely displacing neo-panamax (“NPX”) ships from the flagship routes of liner shipping companies.
The ‘giants’ vessels were first introduced by Maersk in 2013 when the 18,340 teu MAERSK McKINNEY MOLLER joined the fleet. Megamax capacity reached 1.00 million teu in April 2017, 2.00 million teu in July 2019 and 3.00 million teu in October 2017.
Then the pace of orders for megamax vessels slowed as shipping companies turned to smaller container ships.
Today, “MGX” ships dominate the Asia-Europe / Mediterranean shipping lines, where 179 of the 186 ships are scheduled. Combined, they make up 3.88m teu of capacity, around 54% of the total 7.2m teu of capacity routed in the region.
These figures show that, despite some trials in the Pacific and elsewhere, the largest class of container ships is almost exclusively sailing between the Far East and Europe. Only seven ships are in service between the Far East and the Middle East.
The longer distances and the fact that large ship calls are more “evenly” distributed between Europe’s main ports compared to, for example, the US West Coast, where ships often only call at one port, make the Asia-Europe route ideal for “megamax” ships.
However, it is estimated that some “MGX-23” class vessels will sooner or later enter the Asia-US East Coast trade.
